Adrian Granzella Larssen explains how she opened new doors in her career, shifting from her editorial role at the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, DC to eventually becoming the Editor at Large at The Muse in New York City. During the episode, she shares some useful tips on taking charge of your career trajectory, networking for introverts, and making manageable steps toward landing the job of your dreams. In the Mental Fuel® segment, I’ll talk about the concept of creating professional bridges between your current role and target role.

Key Career Insights

Don’t limit your network to only those who seem to directly linked to your target role. You never know where your next lead could come from.

If you want to build the case for tweaking your role, consider not only what you want, but also how you can add more value to the organization so the idea can be more compelling to your managers.

Small steps can add up to the big changes you desire for your career. You don’t need to do everything in one fell swoop. Taking the first step is often the hardest.

Networking doesn’t have to involve showing up at a big event, slapping on a name tag, and working the room. You can instead focus on 1-on-1 meetings, which can work especially well for introverts.

Adrian Granzella Larssen was the first employee and founding editor of The Muse, the career platform that’s helped more than 50 million people find and succeed at their dream jobs. Now, she serves as The Muse’s editor-at-large, is a nationally recognized career expert, and helps other early-stage startups create content that readers truly love. Be sure to connect with her on Twitter and Instagram.

Career change is often misunderstood. Whenever I’ve walked away from one job to pursue another, some people have called me a quitter. Others questioned whether I would ever figure out what I wanted to do. Still others were confused why I couldn’t just be content with the job I had, even if I didn’t love it.

In my experience, both with my own career changes, and after working with hundreds of other professionals who have chosen to change careers, people rarely change directions because they like the idea of quitting. People rarely make a career pivot because they enjoy life disruption. And people rarely leave a job because they weren’t grateful for what they had.

Most of the career changers I cross paths with make big changes in their career because they want to spend their days doing work they actually find meaningful. They grow tired of that nagging feeling that something’s missing. They move on because they realize that life is too short to spend most of your waking hours doing work you don’t truly care about.

In April 2017, I gave a talk at General Assembly in London entitled “Navigating the Emotions of Career Change.” During my talk, I shared my own personal story of career change, my 7 stages of career change roadmap, how to overcome barriers to change. In catching up with some audience members afterwards, I shared some career change myths that seemed to really strike a chord with those in attendance, so I wanted to share them here with you.

Myth 1: Career change is a logical, natural evolution

There’s really nothing natural about walking away from a stable, full-time job. Most of the time, if you’ve been professionally “successful,” that’s because you’ve invested years of time, energy, and education into getting to that point. On top of that, successfully climbing an organizational ladder creates professional momentum that exponentially builds over time. You eventually gain more responsibility, lead better projects, earn more money, build more credibility, and continue to land fancier job titles.

So the idea of walking away from all this investment is hardly logical. Changing careers is often not a natural move. Far from it. In fact, it often feels incredibly counterintuitive. Even if you reach a point where you’re feeling dissatisfied, moving on is often harder than holding on, something I talked about in my TEDx Talk, Reshaping the Story of Your Career.

Changing careers requires taking a brave leap into the unknown with the belief that something better awaits you, even though you may not be certain if this is even true. So letting go of what you already have can feel incredibly risky, even careless. Changing careers is also disruptive, no matter how you cut it. You’re often letting go of years of investment and walking away from the predictable, stable life you’ve created for yourself.

Making a career change requires a bit of a leap of faith. A leap that may feel rather counterintuitive, but still feels right because you know deep down there must be a better way for you to be spending your work days. Ultimately, moving on from your current job means you’re taking a courageous step knowing that meandering off the beaten path is sometimes necessary to uncover a better way forward.

Myth 2: You must make a drastic change

When you mention the idea of career change to people, they often conjure up this image of someone storming into her manager’s office and declaring, “I quit!” Or someone abrputly leaving his office job behind to go write a book in the woods. Or someone packing up and moving to a new city to start a brand new life and career.

Sometimes, it feels like the only solution to your career woes is to change everything, to start over from scratch. I’ve done this myself. I’ve walked away from a 10 year career path and started over, moved to an island to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and relocated to a different country to address some aspect of dissatisfaction in my life. However, while these dramatic moves might make for a great stories, dealing with job dissatisfaction doesn’t always have to be so drastic.

This reminds me of a great lesson from Tony Robbins about how small changes can make a huge difference. About how you may only be 1 millimeter off from being where you want to be in life.

Changing careers doesn’t mean you have to change everything in your job in order to be happy. Sometimes, it means making a small tweak. I once had a situation where I wasn’t happy with my job, but simply shifted from one project to another which made all the difference. Another time, I thought I disliked being in the marketing industry as a whole. But when I shifted brands, my passion for marketing was rekindled.

So if you’re not feeling happy with your career situation, and you don’t have the stomach to make a huge leap or drastic change, you may be able to “fix” things by making a tweak. I think of a job broadly being made up of 6 components: industry, company, function, role, culture, and geography. You may be able to improve your situation drastically by tweaking one of these things instead of all of them at once. In fact, an iterative approach can work really well if you’re trying to diagnose exactly what’s wrong.

Myth 3: Change creates a moment of triumph

We’ve all seen those blog posts where someone’s sharing a personal reflection on how making a big career decision led to complete fulfilment and total happiness. You hear these stories about overnight successes and people finally “making it,” once they discover their true passion!

Everyone loves a good reinvention story, right?

For example, I absolutely LOVE the movie Chef. Jon Favreau plays a head chef who quits his restaurant job to start his own food truck after getting fed up with not being able to cook the food he wants. I love how he decides to create a fresh start for himself. I love how he goes out on a limb, how his sous chef buddy from the restaurant swoops in to help him, how he rediscovers his passion for cooking, and how so many things fall into place for him after he makes the brave move. This movie is one of my all-time favorites. I watched it a few months after I made a similar decision to branch off on my own, so the movie really struck a chord with me.

Now, I actually do think a lot of career changes, when made for the right reason, can and do result in people being much more happier and fulfilled. When I left my corporate job to start my own business, the meaning, balance, and overall satisfaction in my life skyrocketed. And I actually do hear from people now who have admired the move I chose to make.

However, the unbeaten path can also be a very lonely one. For all the people who have commended me for making a career change, more questioned my decision when I was in the thick of making my move. While part of my professional circles stayed intact, others parts of it quickly disappeared. I experienced a lot of disenfranchisement from the professional networks, industry associations, and social groups I once belonged to when I was working as a full-time marketer.

Change is hard. It takes time, persistence, and a tremendous amount of patience. Having observed the trajectories of many people who have changed directions in their careers, reaching the point of true fulfillment or satisfaction can sometimes take years to achieve. And while making intentional, positive changes in your career can create significant improvements, rarely does a moment of triumph occur as the result of a single pivot or decision where the skies part and all is right with the world. Instead, it tends to typically happen after arduously paving out a new path, brick-by-brick, until you eventually turn a pivotal corner that’s only comes after many days, months, and years of consistent, hard work.

Myth 4: You must have a complete plan before you proceed

Sometimes, when you hear the career narratives of people who have relaunched their careers, it seemed like they had a really grand plan of how all the pieces would fall into place mapped out from the start. That makes sense, right? Making a career change is so daunting, so one way to mitigate the risk could be to create a solid plan from start-to-finish of how you’re going to get from where you are today to where you want to go.

I can definitely empathize with the idea of having a plan before you start a new endeavor. I’m much more comfortable having a plan vs. NOT having a plan. Whenever I’ve taken the Myers-Briggs personality survey as part of corporate team-building exercises, my test results have consistently, without fail, ranked me as the most extreme “J” (aka “Planner”) on my teams, a pattern that’s held true across three different companies and three different teams made up of people who already tend to skew toward being planners.

Unfortunately, the need to have an end-to-end, comprehensive career plan can actually create an insurmountable barrier to change. I see many career changers get caught up in a paralyzing chicken or egg spiral. On the one hand, someone wants to have a career path ironed out before making the move. But on the other, you have to sometimes test out that career path to know if it’s right or wrong. Therein lies the conundrum.

Also, creating a full-blown plan itself can be very daunting. It’s hard enough to figure out your next step, let alone your next 10 steps. Excess planning can sometimes get in the way of concrete progress.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. You have to trust the dots will somehow connect in your future. –Steve Jobs

I’ve found that the people who end up being able to pull of a career change aren’t necessarily those who have it all planned out. Instead, they’re the people who decided to just start somewhere and proactively explore other routes, even if those initial explorations ended up not being 100% perfect or fruitful. This might mean taking an evening course, attending an online webinar, getting a professional certification, or starting up a side project as a way of testing the waters.

As John Maynard Keynes once said, “It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.” So when you know you’re in the wrong job, even taking a small step in broadly the right direction can create concrete progress that eventually enables the career change you’re seeking.

Career change is not easy, but it can be achieved

Career Change Achieved

In the end, being able to separate these myths from reality allows you to be more prepared to deal with the real dynamics and challenges of making a career change. Simply being aware that change involves some serious bravery, tweaking as you go, some solitude at times, and the willingness to start somewhere without a fully mapped out plan is the first step toward being at peace with the thrilling and challenging journey ahead.

Hear more about these myths at https://josephpliu.com/career-change-myths/, where you can watch my full talk at General Assembly, London to learn more about my own story of career change, the 7 stages of career change, these 4 myths, and enablers of change. The part where I talk more about these myths starts around 20:00.

Joseph P. Liu is a Career Consultant, Podcast Host and Speaker. Contact him at

So you’ve made the decision to leave your job behind with the hopes of doing work that matters more to you. Now what?

Whenever I’ve closed down a chapter in my career, I’ve always felt a mix of emotions. It normally starts with a sense of relief followed by sense of excitement about the future. But after these emotions wear off—as they often do—I’ve been left with the sense of confusion and fear about what’s next for me.

With so many directions you could take your career, where do you even begin?

On the one hand, options are exciting. On the other hand, too many options can leave you feeling paralyzed about where to begin.

To help you figure things out, I’ve captured four of the most effective ways I’ve seen people reinvent themselves. For each, I’ve also outlined the tradeoffs involved and a few of the challenges I’ve faced when I’ve been on each of these paths myself. Sometimes, just knowing how others approach a career change can help you decide how to proceed during your own career journey.

THE EXPLORER

An “Explorer” has a variety of interests, but doesn’t necessary know which could translate into a viable new career. An Explorer focuses on testing out a wide range of options and may go on a personal renaissance of sorts. This exploration could take the form of tinkering with a side gig. Or rekindling a former childhood passion. Or volunteering for an organization related to one of your interests. Or giving yourself some time and space to make a clean break from the former career and gain a fresh perspective, something I’ve talked about in the “Reflection” stage of the 7 Stages of Career Change.

The great thing about being an Explorer is open-mindedness. This sort of openness allows you to stumble across ideas that may have never crossed your mind before. On the other hand, there’s an underlying stress of trying to quickly pick one path to pursue, especially if you feel you’re “falling behind” those your peer group.

To give you an example of when I’ve run into this challenge myself, after I resigned from medical school, I didn’t really have a clear sense of what I wanted to do next. So I began tinkering with several ideas simultaneously. I initially took a part-time job as a research assistant at the National Institute of Mental Health. I later became a health policy analyst at a consulting firm in Washington DC. I spent my evenings and weekends pursuing a few side interests. I became a part-time salsa dance instructor at a local Cuban Club, and I got my Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) certification. I enjoyed dabbling in a lot of different things.

However, as time went on, I felt increasingly uneasy about not having the clarity I needed to take the next step in my career. I felt like everyone else around me had a career direction, and I was still aimlessly fumbling around.

While all this exploration at times felt very random in a bit all over the place, this room I gave myself to tinker in low-risk ways, ultimately helped me clarify which activities resonated with me and which ones didn’t.

THE STUDENT

A “Student” make the effort to invest in building new knowledge, skills, or training. This might mean taking an online course or evening course. Gaining a useful certification. Attending an educational seminar. Or making a larger investment like going back to school to obtain a degree that can build a bridge toward a future career.

The main advantage of being a life-long learner is really the opportunity to develop a new set of skills. The main challenge centers around clarifying whether the investment of time, money, and energy is worth the payoff.

For example, after working for a while at the health policy consulting firm, I wanted to get more involved with branding and marketing businesses, something I had only dabbled in at the firm. The problem was, at the time, I felt like I lacked some of the formalized business skills and training to be fully effective in my role.

I thought about doing an MBA, but I was nervous about the investment. I was concerned about giving up a comfortable salary and returning to student lifestyle, building up debt instead of equity. I also didn’t have a ton of business experience under my belt, so deep down, I wondered if I could cut it at a top business school. In the end, I decided to go back to school and get my MBA because I knew it would serve as the bridge between where I was and where I wanted to take my career.

Going back to school or investing in training is a serious decision. It involves a lot of time, money, and energy. However, an investment in your skills and knowledge is something no one can take away from you.

THE RENOVATOR

The career “Renovator” is someone who makes a tweak to their situation, but doesn’t completely leave their former profession behind. I would describe their move as more of a pivot rather than a total relaunch. Every job out there as being composed of 5 components: geography, industry, company, function, and role. Sometimes, changing just one or more of those can be enough to move you from having a dissatisfying job to one you really love.

The biggest advantage of being a Renovator is that the transition tends to be smoother because it allows you to retain elements of your existing profession. However, the major challenge is ensuring the change is substantial enough to make a material difference to your day-to-day happiness.

For example, I once held a job as a Senior Brand Manager at a desserts company in London. Although I really loved the role at first, over time, I realized the culture and direction of the company were misaligned to the type of person I wanted to become. So I made a shift. I transplanted myself from a small, UK-based start up to a larger, more established US-based company. I didn’t change everything. I was still in London. I was in a similar role. And I still worked in marketing.

In my case, this minor change was not ultimately enough to drive greater long-term satisfaction in my career. But sometimes, as Tony Robbins once said in one of my favorite talks, you may only be 1 millimeter away. Sometimes making a small tweak can be enough.

THE PIONEER

The “Pioneer” decides to pave a unique path forward, leaving behind the structure and predictability of a full-time job at a company or institution. This could mean starting a business, becoming a freelancer, or offering a useful service that taps into some sort of expertise.

The beauty of being a Pioneer is the independence, autonomy, and flexibility. The main issues are, well, the loneliness that comes from independence, the pressure that comes with autonomy, and maintaining discipline with so much flexibility.

Becoming a Pioneer is ultimately where I chose to take my career.

I love the meaningfulness of doing work that aligns with my values, the satisfaction of making the most of my strengths, and the control it gives me over how I spend my time. Since starting my own business three years ago, I can say from the bottom of my heart, I’ve never felt more gratified, satisfied, and self-actualized as I have since launching off on my own.

Running your own business hasn’t come without it’s challenges, but if you can get past those challenges of self-employment, the rewards can be absolutely tremendous.

WHAT’S THE RIGHT PATH FOR YOU?

While many of the clients and people I work with are Pioneers, each of the paths here can be fruitful toward relaunching your career. The choice really is yours. Nothing stops you from being a Pioneer who’s also exploring additional side gigs. Or a Renovator taking a weekend course.

Ultimately, you get to decide which path aligns with who you are. You get to decide what allows you to gain the most traction toward opening up this next chapter in your career. You get to control where you choose to invest your energies. You get to own and shape what happens next during this exciting time of change.

DECIDE WHAT’S MOST PRODUCTIVE FOR YOU

If you’re struggling to understand all the options out there, you can download my free “4 Ways to Relaunch Your Career” checklist that can help you clarify which path(s) might be right for you, and a few ideas of ways you can begin.

This resource is available exclusively to Career Resource Hub members. If you’re not a member of this specific group, you’ll need to first register below. If you’re already a member and seeing this message, you’ll need to login first to access this resource.

Joseph Liu is a Career Consultant, Podcast Host, and Speaker. He can be reached at joseph@josephpliu.com.

Bublish (www.bublish.com) is a publishing technology company that offers cloud-based tools, metrics and resources.

Author Insight

People change careers in America generally between five and seven times in a lifetime. This is just something to bear in mind so you don’t get caught up in the dead-end thinking of, “This is my choice and I have to stick with it for the rest of my life.” You don’t because you grow and as you grow you may change and you may find what was rewarding to you once may not be rewarding at a later time.

“Who am I?” That is the bottom line. Then you have to know what your interests are and what you are passionate about. You need to explore your values and assess your skills, your strengths, and your talents.

Strategy for Decision-Making

There are action steps you can take to gather information about the world of work.

Bublish (www.bublish.com) is a publishing technology company that offers cloud-based tools, metrics and resources.

Author Insight

Any change takes courage. To be truly satisfied throughout your work life, your career needs to change and grow with you. The job you are most attracted to may change throughout your life. Personalized career coaching exercises will assist you to explore your passions and values and recognize your strengths and skills. Once you have those, you will apply strategies for determining your desired career.

Book Excerpt

Statistics show that people change careers up to three times throughout their lives—and some people pursue as many as seven careers. We are different people at age 20 than we are at age 30, 40, 50 or 60. We look at life differently and our values change too.

That is why identifying your values is such a key part of career development. This process involves asking and answering questions of yourself about what is important to you and observing what you feel passionately attracted to (as well as what you feel passionately repelled by.)

It’s Sunday night and once again you find yourself dreading the upcoming start of the workweek. You know your company is all wrong for you, but you’re not sure if there’s anything better out there. At the time you accepted it’d sounded like a good offer, but now you’re stuck in a position you hate.

Even though you’re not happy, you’re hesitating to actually do something about it, because — let’s admit it — leaving a secure job is scary. Instead of taking a leap, maybe you’ll just wait it out: Something else will come along soon, right?

It might, but it might not, and the only way to know for sure that a more satisfying job is in your future is to be the one driving the change. Here’s how to go about that:

STEP 1: KNOW IT’LL TAKE SOME TIME

Change doesn’t happen overnight. Even if you’re ready to make a move, job searches can drag on (and on!). Don’t give up if it’s taking months instead of weeks.

Or, it could be that the delay is on your end. You might need to stay put until you shore up your savings, or resolve something in your personal life, or maybe even just figure out what exactly the next move will be.

But that doesn’t mean you have to stagnate. By just identifying the steps you’ll need to take eventually, it’ll be easier for you to continue in your current job. After all, you’ll know that you are working on your escape plan.

STEP 2: BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF ABOUT WHAT’S HOLDING YOU BACK

I had a client who had taken a job she thought she’d love, in part because it paid more money. She was enticed with a bonus to move her family, and once she realized she hated that job, she felt stuck. She feared that if she quit the job she would be telling her family she asked them to move for no reason. But by having a conversation with them and finding out they were happy in their new environment, she felt better prepared to tackle the issues with her career. Eventually, she was able to get over her sense of failure and simply look for a new job in her current city.

The lesson here is if you’re feeling stuck based upon the opinions you think others have about your career, open a dialogue. You might find that your spouse, children, parents, or whomever else are more supportive than you give them credit for.

And even if they’re not 100% on board? Keep in mind that it’s your career: You shouldn’t stay in a job you hate forever just to make someone else happy. So be honest about what it is you want. Then, let everyone know you intend to do something about it.

STEP 3: RESEARCH THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO MAKE

Is it really necessary to obtain another degree or certification? (Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.) Before signing up for a new class, review job descriptions for the position you want. Look at the education and skills section to determine general industry requirements, as well as specific employer requirements.

Schedule a few informational interviews to talk to professionals in the industry and specifically within companies where you might eventually want to work. It’ll give you insight into true salaries, actual job requirements, skills that are valued, and any barriers to entry you’re unaware of.

Then, review your past jobs and identify areas where you have performed the tasks listed in the job description for your desired role. When you take the time to do this step, you’ll often find that you have transferable skills that’ll qualify you. (And if you see a gap, you’ll know investing in that degree or course is worth it.)

STEP 4: PUT YOUR RESEARCH INTO ACTION

What did you discover in your research? Whatever it is, start to put into into action—whether it’s signing up for a class to gain a very-needed skill, or buying a book you learned everyone in your position needs to read, or just figuring out which of your past experience are transferable and how exactly to position them on your resume.

Worried that your research led you to the conclusion that you need way more experience than you can ever get without starting at the bottom? That’s no reason to give up. You have a lot of options, but one that’s commonly overlooked is volunteering. It’s a great way to give back while moving your career forward. Really, it’s a win-win situation! You’ll get to showcase different abilities on your resume and a deserving organization will gain some free labor.

By working with a volunteer organization, you can test drive the skills needed for your new career. Need to brush up on your marketing skills? Want to keep your accounting experience sharp? Love event planning, but you’re chained to your desk in your current role? Look for a nonprofit in need of someone to pitch in in those areas.

Going back to number one, you don’t need to do this all right now, today. But, at some point, you do need to start. Because you spend way too much time at your job to be unhappy. So, instead of just hating it and hoping something will change, start planning your escape now. Your future self will thank you.

This story was written by Stacey Gordon for The Muse, your ultimate career destination, offering exciting job opportunities, expert advice and a peek behind the scenes into fantastic companies and career paths. We believe that you can and should love your job–and be successful at it–and we want to help make that happen. Whether you’re just starting out, changing career paths, or aiming for the C-suite, we’ve got everything you need to take charge of your career.

This article comes from The USA TODAY College partner network. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of USA TODAY. You understand that we have no obligation to monitor any discussion forums, blogs, photo- or video-sharing pages, or other areas of the Site through which users can supply information or material. However, we reserve the right at all times, in our sole discretion, to screen content submitted by users and to edit, move, delete, and/or refuse to accept any content that in our judgment violates these Terms of Service or is otherwise unacceptable or inappropriate, whether for legal or other reasons.

Bublish (www.bublish.com) is a publishing technology company that offers cloud-based tools, metrics and resources.

Author Insight

Become Your Own Career Champion

You can create your own positive perspective with the messages you play in your inner dialogue and then manifest those messages in the material world.

Book Excerpt

Become Your Own Career Champion

This book is designed to help you understand that you have the power to be your own champion. You can create your own positive perspective with the messages you play in your inner dialogue and then manifest those messages in the material world. You can do this for yourself. Do not allow other people to tell you, “Don’t do this” or “You shouldn’t do that” or “This is not good enough.” Instead, you can say, “I know what works for me. I can make my own life and I can champion my career. “

Bublish (www.bublish.com) is a publishing technology company that offers cloud-based tools, metrics and resources.

CHANGE CAREERS WITH COURAGE

Author Insight

We are different people at age 20 than we are at age 30, 40, 50 or 60. We look at life differently and our values change too. That is why identifying your values is such a key part of career development which involves asking and answering questions of yourself about what is important to you, and observing what you feel passionately attracted to (as well as what you feel passionately repelled by).

Book Excerpt

10 Reasons for Pursuing Your Ideal Career

I have a short list of the top 10 reasons why you need to work at having your dream job. These reasons will be affirmed throughout this book as you read on.

Reason # 1: If you are doing what you love to do, it allows you to be your true self all of the time. Think about it. It really takes a tremendous amount of energy on a daily basis to not be authentic at work. Sometime we feel we have to take on a sort of “false persona” to fulfill the job requirements. Your ideal job will enable le you to be who you are and not waste any energy.